Another book I recall liking, without remembering much about it. ( )

"Culture is for amateurs."

It is now de rigueur to declare Fitzgerald as one of the great neglected English novelists of the 20th century, and I must add my voice to that woeful chorus. Her starkly funny - or perhaps humorous upsetting - style is akin to those great ladies Muriel Spark and Barbara Pym. Her characters, like theirs, often hover on the fringes of good society; the "distressed gentlewomen", Pym often calls them.

Florence Green is one such character, a plain but still reasonably young widow who chooses to open a bookshop in a town that wants to reject her at every turn - even her resident poltergeist wants nothing to do with her. In 10 short chapters, Fitzgerald outlines Florence's unsettling encounters with the townfolk in wry, pointed notes, never allowing us to become either sympathetic or deeply enmeshed in the lives of any of them. Its events are of no consequence, and yet somehow feel staggeringly consequential. And at the heart of it all are questions about how we appreciate culture, how we relate to books themselves, and why we allow our dreams to take hold of us against all reason.

A deeply enjoyable read for fans of ironic British novelists. ( )

https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2023/03/2023027-bookshop-penelope-fitzgerald.html ( )

A sad little book about an old woman wants to open a book shop. ( )

Set in England in 1959, Florence Green is a widow in her fifties who elects to open a bookshop in a quiet seaside village. She buys the Old House, which has been vacant for over five years and rumored to be haunted. The business begins to thrive, but it does not last long. It seems she has transgressed social boundaries in purchasing this house that a local woman wants to use as an arts center. This book is not a cozy read about a bookstore. It is a sad story of jealousy and scheming against a person who has done nothing wrong. It is a short book and a quick read. It was published in 1978 and nominated for the Booker Prize. The story is nicely written but I never fully engaged with it. ( )